World report

GOMA, Congo -- Furious mobs stoned U.N. peacekeepers' compounds Monday and thousands of desperate people fled advancing rebel troops as chaos returned to eastern Congo, fueled by festering hatreds left over from the Rwandan genocide and the country's unrelenting civil wars.

In what appeared to be a major retreat, hundreds of government soldiers pulled back Monday from the battlefront north of the provincial capital of Goma -- fleeing any way possible. Soldiers honked their horns angrily as they struggled to push through throngs of displaced people on the main road.

Crowds of protesters threw rocks outside four U.N. compounds in Goma, venting outrage at what they claimed was a failure to protect them from rebels. Later in the day, peacekeepers in helicopter gunships attacked rebel forces surging on Kibumba, said U.N. spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg.

U.S. officials say Syria raid killed terrorist leader

WASHINGTON -- A CIA-led raid on a compound in eastern Syria killed an al-Qaida in Iraq commander who oversaw the smuggling into Iraq of foreign fighters whose attacks claimed thousands of Iraqi and American lives, three U.S. officials said.

The body of Badran Turki Hishan al-Mazidih, an Iraqi national who used the nom de guerre Abu Ghadiya, was flown out of Syria on a U.S. helicopter at the end of the operation Sunday by CIA paramilitary officers and special forces, one U.S. official said.

"It was a successful operation," a second U.S. official told McClatchy Newspapers. "The bottom line: This was a significant blow to the foreign fighter pipeline between Syria and Iraq."

Gunfire brings down U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Insurgents shot down a U.S. helicopter after exchanging fire with its crew in central Afghanistan on Monday, while a suicide bomber in the north killed two U.S. soldiers inside a police station, officials said.

The helicopter was forced down in Wardak, one province west of Kabul, after insurgents hit it with gunfire Monday, said Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthew, a U.S. military spokesman.

The crew survived and have been extracted from the area, he said.

"The helicopter crew exchanged fire with the enemy before the damage brought the helicopter down," Matthews said. Coalition troops secured the area and "are in the process of recovering" the helicopter, he said.

At least four militants were killed in the exchange, said Fazel Karim Muslim, the chief of Sayed Abad district.